Environmental Studies

One of the highlights of the past year has been the publication of a review of the environmental archaeology of northern England (Plant and vertebrate remains from archaeological sites in northern England: data reviews and future directions, Huntley J P and Stallibrass S, 1996, Architect and Archaeol Soc of Durham and Northumberland Res Rep 4). This is a forerunner of the EH reviews of environmental archaeology currently underway. It provides the general background to the northern counties of England followed by 2 large sections on plant and vertebrate remains. Each of these is organised by cultural period using data from publications, archives, and some assessment reports. Site distribution maps for each period and an integrated site gazetteer are presented. Spatial and temporal lacunae in the existing data are highlighted to help identify the priorities for future excavations.

Assessment and detailed analytical work has continued on a wide range of sites. In the north, plant remains from the late Roman site of Thornborough Farm at Catterick, North Yorkshire, included large quantities of large barley grains from primary pit fills. Chaff and weed seeds are very scarce and wheat grains form less than 1% of the assemblage. It has long been assumed, on the basis of references in Roman literature, that barley was used mainly as animal feed and eaten by people only as a punishment ration or in times of hardship. However, the dominance of barley among the plant remains from Thornborough Farm and almost every other Roman site in northern England, together with the observation that the barley from Thornborough Farm is of good quality (the grains are large and well-filled), suggests that barley may have played a more important part in human diet in the northern Empire than has been thought; it should be possible to test this suggestion by the examination of bran fragments from human faecal remains. Examination of the animal bones from the same site revealed an unusually high incidence of pathological and pseudo-pathological anomalies. Further work is to be undertaken to investigate their cause.

Bone cancer is rarely seen in skeletons from archaeological sites. However a case was found among the burials from the deserted Medieval village at Wharram Percy. The skeleton in question is of a middle aged male, which has been studied in a collaborative investigation between the Ancient Monuments Laboratory and the Medical Faculty at Charles University, Prague. The changes seen in the skeleton consist mainly of deposits of abnormal bone both outside and within the bones. Radiography and scanning electron and light microscopy were used to help arrive at a firm diagnosis. The lesions are indicative of a metastatic carcinoma, a cancer which spread to the bones from a primary focus in soft tissue. When cancer spreads to the skeleton it generally results mainly in bone destruction rather than abnormal bone formation, but this is not so in prostate cancer, in which, as in this case, bone deposition predominates. From visual examination of the bones, prostate cancer seemed a likely diagnosis. The X-radiographic and microscopic appearance of the diseased bone also support this diagnosis as they closely resemble that seen in modern patients with bone lesions from prostate cancer.

Animal remains from the late 4th-century signal station at Carr Naze, Filey, Yorkshire have provided a detailed insight into the provisioning of an isolated military outpost, built and occupied at the very end of the Roman period. A distinctive distribution of parts of the skeleton, with only major meat bearing bones present, and the abundance of oyster shells, indicate that the site received most of its food through organised victualling, with only limited exploitation of locally available coastal resources (as evidenced by several butchered sea bird bones and a few fish bones and marine shells). The animal bones generally show most of the characteristic traits of 'Romanised' assemblages, suggesting that a centralised administrative network, preserving many Roman traditions, still operated in the region as late as the very end of the 4th century AD. Evidence for the abandonment of the station in the early-5th century AD is very clear from the numerous owl pellet remains recovered from terminal deposits in the courtyard. Bones of field and water voles, field and harvest mice, moles, frogs, toads and small lizards, show that the complex was used as a regular roosting (and possibly nesting) site, probably by barn owls. A small land-snail assemblage also indicates this final abandonment, with a species suite suggesting that areas of semi-open ground, rubble, and also light vegetation were present within the station courtyard.

Research is continuing on distinctive microscopic calcium carbonate spheres that have recently been found in a number of different contexts including deposits of Anglian date at West Heslerton, North Yorkshire, and Bronze Age deposits at Runnymede, Surrey. These spheres, which are around 0.0050.015mm in diameter, are formed in the gut of various animal species, being especially common in ruminants such as sheep, cow and goat. They survive burning, and dense masses are preserved under suitable conditions indicating stabling layers or midden material.